In a known method of producing insulated electric wire such as magnet wire by continuously drawing and coating copper wire, copper wire is cold-drawn through a series of dies to a desired small diameter and then passed through an annealing apparatus. After leaving the annealing apparatus, the wire proceeds through a quenching apparatus which includes a water containing quench pan having sponge wipers at its exit end for wiping the wire free of water as it leaves the quenching apparatus. From the quenching apparatus, the wire is directed generally upwardly to the top of a vertical curing oven which has an enamel applicator unit at its lower end. A number of downward and upward passes of the wire are made through the curing oven with the enamel applicator unit applying liquid enamel to the wire upon upward passes thereof before the wire re-enters the curing oven. As many as twenty wires may be advanced through the annealing apparatus and the quenching apparatus to the curing oven in parallel, side-by-side relationship.
During the wire drawing operation, copper fines, i.e. small particles or slivers of copper, are deposited on the outer surfaces of the wires. As these fines pass with the wires through the annealing apparatus, the quenching apparatus and the curing oven, they create a number of problems. The accumulation of fines in the sponge wipers at the quenching apparatus requires daily replacement of the sponge wipers. At the top of the curing oven, the fines cause a large housekeeping problem as they fall off the wires onto the equipment at that location. Other fines travel with the wires through the curing oven and build up in the dies of the enamel applicator unit where they can occasionally break off in globs or lumps affixed to a wire or cause breakage of a wire by clogging a die. The fines also interfere with proper adhesion of liquid enamel to the bare copper wires. Various faults in the enamel coating of the wires such as slivers, beads and discontinuitites result from the presence of fines on the wires.
To alleviate the problems created by copper fines, felt pads have been employed to wipe fines from the wires after they leave the quenching apparatus. Although these felt pad wipers are somewhat effective in reducing the quantity of fines carried by the wires, they, like the quench sponges, become littered with fines and must be replaced daily. Thus, a need exists for a convenient apparatus which can effectively remove fines from a plurality of small diameter copper wires without the need for first wiping quenching water from the wires and without the need for frequent replacement of its cleaning elements.
It is known to remove scale and other foreign material from wire material with rotating brushes in rubbing contact with the wire material. Such an expedient is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,702,489 wherein three rotating brushes are disposed in angularly and axially spaced relationship with each other along the path of wire material advancement. The brushes of wire bristles employed in this arrangement are entirely unsuitable for removing fines from thin copper wires of about 0.5 to 1.0 mm diameter. Moreover, it would be uneconomical and impractical to provide a set of three rotating brushes for each of the twenty closely spaced wires advancing from a quenching apparatus.